For Otis Spunkmeyer to achieve its goals, it first had to simplify its strategy and shed parts of the business that didn’t fit the brand anymore. It is a strategy that has been employed across Aspire Bakeries, parent company of Otis Spunkmeyer, allowing the company to focus on what sets it apart.

“We found that we had a lot of things in the Aspire Bakeries portfolio that didn’t make sense; it wasn’t our core capability. The strategy now sounds so simple and focused,” said Tyson Yu, chief executive officer at Los Angeles-based Aspire Bakeries. “We’ve made an intentional choice only to focus on foods where we think we have a leadership position. As part of that, we had to cut some of the portfolio. Aspire Bakeries had more than 1,500 SKUs as an entire business. Today, proudly, we’re below 800.”

That leadership position lies in baked goods serving a wide variety of customers, where Otis Spunkmeyer goods sit atop their sweet baked goods categories in the foodservice industry.

“We’re No. 1 in foodservice cookies and muffins,” Yu said. “There are so many great pockets where you can find Otis. The penetration we have in the market, the various points of sale, the very creative places we’ve been able to sell it, that’s a strength, and we’ve been doing it since 1977. We’re very proud of that consumer we’ve been able to find.”

As the company concentrates on its core strengths, it’s been making strategic capital investments in its bakeries over the past few years. In 2021, the company closed its Otis Spunkmeyer bakery in San Leandro, Calif., and moved operations about 15 miles down the road to Newark, Calif., where it is cranking out cookies, cookie dough and more five days a week.

“We found over time that we needed a bigger bakery. We wanted to keep the roots in Northern California but be able to expand for growth,” Yu said. “The other bakery was nice, but it wasn’t Newark. What we wanted to do is build for the future.”

Like its Otis Spunkmeyer brand, Aspire Bakeries has focused on its strengths following the acquisition by private equity firm Lindsay Goldberg in 2021. Yu said the bakeries and the brands are its top two strengths.

“We knew if we put bakeries at the center of what we do, good things happen,” Yu said. “And that’s what we’ve been doing. It starts with the bakery. We have 13 of them, six for Otis in particular. We’ve always had this tremendous asset. Now it’s top of mind.”

Besides Otis Spunkmeyer, the company’s other premier brand is artisan bread maker La Brea Bakery. Other brands include Pennant, maker of frozen puff pastry; La Francaise Bakery, which produces a variety of European-style baked goods, including breads, croissants and cinnamon rolls; and Oakrun Farm Bakery, which produces English muffins and crumpets. 

“Our brands and our bakeries are what we think about every single day,” Yu explained.

Aspire Bakeries is zeroing in on the North American market as its products are distributed in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.

“Our theme here of simplification and our strategy in North America is what we focus on,” Yu said. “Otis Spunkmeyer is the best. La Brea Bakery is the best. Pennant foods is the best. That’s our vision. The best is helping guide us to achieve our long-term goals.”

The company is led by its core values: integrity, ownership, customer focus, creativity and care.

“The growth is a result of our living by our values,” Yu said. “We really believe that, and hopefully, the people who come here every single day believe that. I think that’s a big part of the overarching intent of creating what Aspire means, and what Otis Spunkmeyer and our other brands stand for.”

Although Aspire Bakeries has brands with decades of experience and tradition, Yu said the 3-year-old company has a startup feel now.

“I have a 3-year-old daughter. It helps me constantly remember we are a young company, but we have such a rich history of our brands,” Yu said. “We feel like we’re just getting started.”

This article is an excerpt from the September issue of Baking & Snack. To read the entire feature on Aspire Bakeries, click here.